RBMA Forums Policy

Instructions: Forum Use and General Forum Policy

The following are the rules, conditions and other announcements that apply to every RBMA Forum:

1. Do not post any defamatory, abusive, profane, threatening, offensive or illegal materials.
2. Do not post any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that it owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants RBMA and users of this list the non-exclusive right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print and use such information or other material.
3. Do not post any material regarding specific prices or fees charged or paid.
4. Do not post any information concerning prices, discounts, or terms or conditions of sale either obtained by or offered to another entity.
5. Do not post materials concerning market shares, salaries, sales territories, profit margins, or encouraging the selection or rejection of customers or suppliers.
6. Do not post job announcements, recruiting leads or other employment related items. RBMA's joblink is designed for this purpose.
7. Do not post or advertise seminar information. RBMA posts educational opportunities on the RBMA Web site in accordance with RBMA policy.
8. Do not include any attachments with posted messages.
9. Do not post any materials which lobby for a political purpose.
10. Do not post information that can be deemed as self-serving commercial advertising for products or services. Using the forums for commercial purposes will result in the following consequences: The first offense will result in being contacted directly by an appointed RBMA representative; the second offense will result in reprimand on the forum by an appointed RBMA representative; and the third offense could result in the removal of that person from participating in RBMA’s forums.

There are some additional policies and procedures which forum participants are asked to follow, which will enhance the forum experience for all users.

1. Do not switch topics when replying to a previously posted topic, meaning that the new topic will not relate at all to what appears in the message string subject line.
2. Do not send communications to the forum with attachments. NOTE: If you have a document that will be of interest to the general RBMA membership, consider uploading it to the RBMA web site community gateway. See more about this on the RBMA web site members-only page, under “Community”, then “Gateway”.
3. Do monitor the forum in an ongoing way—either message-by-message, or with the digest version. This enables one to gain benefit from the variety of information which flows through the forums daily, and will help avoid many repeated questions on topics for which much information may exist in the archives.
4. Do learn to use the archives to search for information on a topic prior to posting a question which may just have been asked by someone else. Don’t expect another forum participant to check the archives for you.
5. If you receive an answer to a question which you find very valuable and want to say thanks, please thank the responder directly rather than through the forum. This will help decrease the number messages which forum participants look at daily.
6. A lot of forum subscribers know one another personally. Please do not use the forum for personal conversations or comments added to the business portion of the post.
7. Read carefully the next article in this document (Netiquette), and keep it handy to refer to as you monitor and participate with the RBMA forums. NOTE: This article references a forum communication alternative in “digest” form. For more information about this, contact the RBMA staff office.

RBMA may monitor the site for inappropriate postings. In the event that any inappropriate posting is brought to the RBMA's attention, RBMA will take all appropriate action. To promote reliable communications via the Web Site, RBMA reserves the right to open, re-format and re-transmit to the intended recipient any e-mail message from you to any advertiser or other user.

RBMA reserves the right to terminate access to any user who does not abide by these rules.

Forum Disclaimer

These Forums/discussion groups are provided as a service of the Radiology Business Management Association (RBMA). RBMA accepts no responsibility for the opinions and information posted on this site by others. RBMA disclaims all warranties with regard to information posted on this site, whether posted by RBMA or any third party; this disclaimer includes all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall RBMA be liable for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of any information posted on this site. Statements made in forums, conferences, and chats reflect only the views of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of RBMA. Advice received in any forum within this Web Site should not be relied on for important decisions and you should consult an appropriate professional for specific advice tailored to your situation.

 

Tip on Forum Etiquette

Netiquette: Tips and Tricks For the Budding Forum User
By Gregory M. Kusiak, MBA
Published in the RBMA Bulletin October 2001 (revised May 2005)

The RBMA forums are a vital resource for RBMA members. Many users may still be unfamiliar with how the forums work-or should work. Conventions and courtesies that help automobile traffic function smoothly-driving on the right-hand side of the road, dimming headlights for an oncoming car-are widely accepted. But similar rules are often not followed on forums. Besides being annoying, this lack of etiquette (or "netiquette") makes the forums less user-friendly. The following article contains suggestions for some initial standards on the use of forums. The author hopes that the article will begin a dialogue among forum users regarding more "tips and tricks" to make the forums more effective for everyone.

How the Forums Work

A forum- also called a list or listserv- is a mechanism that utilizes e-mail and specialized server software to enable a group of people to communicate with one another. It's a great place to ask questions and share useful ideas. By analogy, it is very similar to a gathering of people in a large room, where each person has a microphone. When you go to the forum page in the Members Only section of the RBMA Web site at www.rbma.org/members/forums/, you enter this room through a virtual door. A person speaks and everyone else can hear him/her clearly, even if the person intends to speak only to a single colleague. When a question is asked, anyone in attendance-or no one-may respond. When an answer or comment is offered, everyone receives it. It is a very public place, even though you may be "attending" in a bathrobe before you've finished your first cup of morning coffee! All questions and answers are recorded and indexed for future reference (the forum archives).

How to Post a message

The typical header line in most e-mail applications usually contains some version of the following elements: To, From, CC, BCC, Subject, Priority, Attachments, and Receipt Confirmation. Although it may seem obvious, a moment spent on these items might help you construct a more effective forum message.

Let's say that you have a difficult personnel issue and aren't quite sure how to handle it. An excellent way to get some advice is to post a question on the RBMA Practice Management Forum. To subscribe, visit www.rbma.org/members/forums/subscribe.php. Once you subscribe, you may post a message. Here are some basic tips on how to properly construct your posting:

To: Place the e-mail address for the Practice Management Forum (practicemanagement@rbma.org) here. Do not include the e-mail address of any other person or forum here. If you wish to include individuals who are not forum members, use the "CC" option (see below). If you wish to post your message to more than one forum, copy your message and paste it into a separate message addressed to that forum. Adhering to this courtesy means that users can scan their inboxes and determine easily that the message has been sent from a forum user. If another forum e-mail address is included, that forum name may appear as the sender, resulting in confusion or the deletion of the message by the user.

From: This will be entered into the message automatically by your e-mail software application. Depending on how your application is configured, it will display your e-mail address or a name/identity that you have entered (i.e., "Greg Kusiak"). If you are posting a message using someone else's application, it will post the message under their identity. If they are not a forum member, the message will be rejected by the RBMA's server software.

CC: Place the e-mail addresses of any additional intended recipients here.

BCC: Some e-mail applications permit messages to be sent to additional recipients without notifying other recipients, the equivalent of the "blind carbon copy" of yesteryear. Here you may place the e-mail address of the intended recipient whose inclusion you wish to conceal from the other recipient(s).

Subject: As a forum member, this is the most important entry, since the forum archive search mechanism searches by subject. It should specify the topic or question in a clear and concise way, preferably five words or less. Include any relevant CPT codes when appropriate, especially when posting on the Coding Forum. In our example, the subject may be: Motivating New Hires. This provides two very important benefits to everyone: 1) it enables fellow users to decide whether to read your message based on the interest value to them, and 2) it provides a basis for archiving the message so that it may be referred to in the future. Lame subject lines like "Please Reply" or "Help" or "Second Post" should generally result in all users (with the possible exception of those without a life) deleting the message without reading it.

When users post messages by using the "reply" feature to a previous message, most e-mail applications automatically create the subject line by placing an abbreviation (usually "re:") in front of the original subject. If the original subject is unclear, or if you are changing the nature of the discussion with your comment or question, you may need to overwrite this default subject. Be aware, though, that changing the subject line in the middle of a long-standing discussion, for the purposes of clarity, may be confusing to those who have been following the discussion (with that subject line) closely. Some lists also attach an identifier to every message. The American Healthcare Radiology Administrators forum places "[ahra]" in front of every subject. At present, the RBMA forums do not use such a protocol.

Priority: Some e-mail applications offer the sender the opportunity to establish an indicator of urgency, either low or high, for a message. Normal messages will have no indicator, while low or high priority messages will have a symbol attached to them in the receiver's inbox. This should be rarely used for any e-mail, and it is questionable whether any messages appropriate to the forum should be marked "urgent" or "high priority." Occasionally, you may encounter a forum member whose e-mail is configured to send all messages as "urgent;" the author's suggestion is that you use your "filter" mechanism to automatically delete mail received from such members.

Attachments: The RBMA forums do not accept e-mail with attachments. This reduces the possibility of spreading viruses, prevents overloading the servers and reduces the legal liabilities that might accompany involvement in distributing copyrighted or objectionable material. Attachments are permitted by many forums, however, because of their usefulness in sharing important information. In an effort to share such information more effectively, an area for document downloads is available on the RBMA Web site.

Your e-mail application may permit you to send a "business card" or graphic-heavy "signature" with your e-mail message. Others allow you to use "notepaper" or "letterhead" when you send an e-mail message. Be advised that these may be considered file attachments and may therefore be rejected by the server. If they are not rejected, they may have features that cannot be interpreted by some of the intended recipients' programs, resulting in a message full of encoded gibberish. The special fonts, styles and colors in these files use hyper text markup language (HTML) instead of plain text. While it can be much more stylish and attractive, it is also capable of carrying viruses that do not appear as attachments and that many anti-virus software programs may not be able to neutralize. (Some e-mail users are so adamant about this concern that they have developed a mantra: "Friends don't let friends use HTML.")

Receipt Confirmation: Some e-mail applications offer the sender the opportunity to be notified when the original message is received. Essentially, the receipt confirmation appears as a "reply" to the original sender, a new message in the original sender's inbox. These confirmations have a high nuisance value, and should be used sparingly in personal communication. For your own good, they should never be used with the forums.

Common Forum Issues

Anti-trust and Slander. As public places, the forums are very sensitive to inappropriate comments. Any information that cannot legally be public, like pricing or other competitive items, should not be posted. Similarly, personal comments about individuals or firms that are unflattering or potentially harmful should be made with great caution. Be careful about posting any information concerning market shares, salaries, profit margins or similar topics.

Auto-responders. Many e-mail applications provide for an automatic response when a message is received. It is intended for periods of absence, so that a note stating "I'm out of the office and will respond to all messages upon my return" is sent to all correspondents who attempt to contact you. These auto-responses are an incredible bother to forum participants. If you have this feature enabled, it will respond to a message from the forum, then respond to its own message, then respond to that message ad infinitum. On the day of your return, you would find hundreds of identical messages in your inbox. Great care should be taken with these tools. If you wish to use an auto-responder, it may be necessary to dis-enroll from the forum, then re-enroll upon your return. Failure to do so could result in your being barred from future participation.

Capital Letters. The use of ALL CAPITAL LETTERS in a message is considered equivalent to shouting, and is always unwelcome.

Commercial Postings. A forum is a rich environment for selling products and services. However, such messages are strictly prohibited, and will result in suspension of forum privileges. This includes job postings. The RBMA Job Link is meant for that purpose: www.rbma.org/career/.

Grammar and Spelling. The rapid growth of e-mail as a common form of business and personal communication has resulted in changes in everyday language. In addition to new technical terms and slang, there have been new words and acronyms created that enable a rapid expression of thoughts via keyboard. Terms like IMHO (an acronym for "in my humble opinion") permit fewer keystrokes to convey the thought. But there is still no substitute for clearly expressed and well-considered thoughts, and your comments on a forum represent you and your professionalism to a large and growing audience. Accordingly, attention to grammar and spelling still improves the effectiveness of your communication.

Instructions. For instructions on various technical aspects of RBMA forum use, information is available both online on the RBMA Web site and via e-mail. Just send a message to info@rbma.org with any questions.

Long Message Strings. When forum members respond to a message using the "reply" feature, the original message usually appears in the reply. Most commonly, it appears below the reply text, and is highlighted or labeled in some fashion to distinguish it from the new comments. Incorporating the original message is often useful to the continuity of the discussion. However, some are very lengthy to begin with, and most contain a lot of extraneous information or characters that add to their length. For purposes of the clarity and readability of the new message, you should consider deleting a significant portion of the original message unless it is very brief or necessary to the discussion. In lengthy discussions, one may see replies about comments about replies about comments, and so on. (The discussion can become like a photocopy that has been reproduced so many times and it is no longer legible.) When replying to a reply of any sort, it is generally best to eliminate all previous copied replies except the specific one to which you are responding. This is helpful to all users, but can pose particular problems to digest users because of the volume it adds to the digest version (see "Digest Version" below).

America Online (AOL) users may have some special problems with the "reply" feature, since it normally attaches the original message rather than incorporating it into the text of the most recent reply message. Since the RBMA forums do not accept attachments, you may wish to copy some relevant text from the original message and paste it into your reply. Alternatively, you may wish to briefly restate the issue to which you are responding if the "subject" is too cryptic to serve the purpose.

"Me Too" Postings. Users often seek or offer materials (like sample job descriptions, etc.) on the forums for the benefit of their fellow users. This usually results in a flurry of individual "please fax me one, too" messages. If one person sends one message to a forum that has 500 participants, the result may be 500 reply messages for the simple purpose of asking one person to distribute a piece of information. These requests should be made privately and directly to the person who offered the material, not to the forum address.

Mutual Respect. A professional atmosphere on the forums contributes to its usefulness, and engenders prestige for participants and the RBMA. Accordingly, members should follow simple principles of mutual respect and common sense. Members who accidentally leave on their auto-responders are only displaying that they are human, and should be treated with sympathy and empathy. Those who deserve a word of advice or admonishment should receive it in a private message, not one posted to the forums.

Taking It On Faith. Both wizards and fools can contribute with equal ease to a forum. A good user is both open to ideas and skeptical about them. Take nothing from a forum on faith. Also, remember that a tool such as a forum is a rich environment for spreading urban legends. A good place to remind oneself of this and to check out sensational rumors is www.urbanlegends.about.com.

Patient Confidentiality and HIPAA. Frequently, posts contain information about the details of a diagnostic imaging procedure. However, they should not contain information that would permit identification of an individual patient, consistent with accepted norms of patient confidentiality and the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Personal and Frivolous Messages. A forum is not the place to renew old friendships or check on the status of a colleague's most recent promotion. Such messages (with the exception of accolades and information that may be appropriately public) should be handled "off line," i.e. in a private communication. In most e-mail applications, the personal e-mail address of the correspondent may be copied directly out of the message text and pasted into the "To" line of a blank e-mail message for this purpose. Beware of the "reply" choice for messages at all times. There are few frequent forum users who have not had an embarrassing moment upon realizing that a private, e-mailed comment was distributed all over the world-a fate which has befallen even the author all too frequently. You are also well advised to remember that a message posted to a forum can be forwarded by any forum participant to any e-mail address in the world-whether or not the e-mail address belongs to a forum participant. When it is said that messages are public, it is meant that they are PUBLIC!

Technical Problems. Any issues regarding technical malfunctions, subscribing and unsubscribing need to be addressed not to the forum, but instead to the RBMA staff directly at info@rbma.org. Messages like "Take me off this stupid list!" are not only unwelcome, they are futile and make the sender look foolish.

Second Request!! On occasion, posted messages go unanswered. These requests may be re-posted after a few days with the comment that it is a "repeat," and that there were no responses to the previous post. However, posting a message with a subject like "Second Request!!" or "Where are you?" implies that there is an obligation on the part of users to respond. In fact, all participation is voluntary, and frequent contributors to the forums should be prized for their assistance, rather than chastised for not instantly providing an answer. No one owes you answers to the questions you post on the forums.

Signatures. It is often useful to know the identity of the author of a post. Questions and comments often have aspects which are related to geography, practice type or size, service location, etc. Although most RBMA forum participants are members of the RBMA community, some are not. Accordingly, it is desirable to have some form of signature in the message. Since some e-mail applications are very unfriendly with respect to capturing the sender's e-mail address, it is useful to have your e-mail address in the signature. A signature might take the following form:

Jane Doe, RT
Drs. Seemore and Chargeless
Singapore
jdrt@radoffc.net.si

If you wish, it could also contain your snail-mail address and telephone information. Many e-mail applications have a default signature capability that will automatically place the desired signature information in your message. Note that some vendors may take advantage of your signature to contact you for advertising purposes, despite the fact that it's prohibited. If this occurs, please report the incident to the RBMA staff at info@rbma.org.

Test Messages. Messages sent to a forum for the sole purpose of determining whether a user is properly enrolled is a minor annoyance to the other users and is avoidable. If you are concerned that you are not properly connected, send a message in the form of a question or comment about a bona fide subject and wait for a response. When you see your message posted and when later a response is made, it will prove that your connection is working. (Remember, typing "Please ignore, this is a test" in the subject line may prompt everyone to read it despite its stated intent, which is irritating.) If a problem persists, contact the forum administrator directly at info@rbma.org.

Off-Topic Posts. The RBMA forums are organized according to subject matter. Posts may frequently address topics that logically fall into more than one area. However, posts should generally be made to the forum that has a focus most consistent with the subject of the post. If you are not a member of the appropriate forum, join it rather than make an off-topic post. With rare exceptions, off-topic posts are not welcomed by forum participants.

The RBMA forums are perfect examples of the organization's motto, Progress Through Sharing. To subscribe today, visit www.rbma.org/members/forums/subscribe.php. With a bit of netiquette under your belt, you are ready to join (or be a better participant of) an instant network of radiology business management professionals.

Forum-Speak

Brush up on your "forum-speak." The following are a few terms that are frequently used regarding forums:

Digest Version: Participation in a forum by means of receiving a single, lengthy e-mail message that is a compilation of all the messages posted in a 24-hour period. It is in the form of a table of contents (a "digest" of the day's messages), followed by the details of each message.

HTML: An acronym for "hyper text markup language," a display programming language widely used with Internet-based applications such as e-mail and Web pages. Most e-mail applications that support graphics and color use HTML. Older versions of e-mail applications may not support HTML, resulting in indecipherable or difficult-to-read messages when an HTML user sends a message to a non-HTML user.

Listserver: A hardware and software system that manages the broadcast communications between defined groups or correspondents via e-mail.

Lurker: A forum participant who receives and reads posts but does not contribute responses. Remember that among the lurkers may be prosecutors, investigators, etc.

Post: As a verb, it means "to send a message to the forum." As a noun, it means "a message or question sent to a forum." (This is analogous to the terms used with respect to a bulletin board, on which items are "posted".)

RTF: An acronym for "rich text format," a text-based (rather than graphic-based) method of displaying e-mail. Most e-mail using this format will not display anything but plain text (i.e., no italics, bolding, underlining, etc.).

String or Thread: A posting to a forum and all of the replies and comments to which it is related. These comments normally occur in sequence (like a conversation, each person speaking in turn) over a brief period, and are therefore "strung together." Since they revolve around a common topic or issue, they have a "common thread."

Gregory M. Kusiak, MBA, has held various health care management positions for more than 30 years. He has been an RBMA member for more than 10 years, during which he has continuously advocated the RBMA's use of electronic media to serve members. He is currently president of California Medical Business Services, Inc., a management services organization with more than 160 employees. He can be reached at 223 North 1st Avenue, Suite 201, Arcadia, CA 91006; 626/821-1411; 626/821-0911 Fax; Gregory_Kusiak@msn.com. He also serves as Chairman of the Web Site Committee.